Bale opened the scoring with a glancing header in the sixth minute, and it was all downhill from there for Inter Milan. The Italian giants conceded again in the 18th minute, when Gylfi Siggurdson finished off a rebounded shot from Jermaine Defoe, and in the 53rd minute, when Jan Vertonghen header found the net off a corner kick.

Bale did pick up a yellow card in the match, ruling him out for the second leg at the San Siro, due to yellow card accumulation.

Here are the other scores around the Europa League, and some more stories to get your Friday going:

EUROPA LEAGUE SCOREBOARD

Chelsea 1, Steaua Bucharest 0

FC Basel 2, Zenit St. Petersburg 0

Benfica 1, Bordeaux 0

Levante 0, Rubin Kazan 0

Lazio 2, Stuttgart 0

Newcastle United 0, Anzi Makhachkala 0

Fenerbahce 1, Viktoria Plzen 0

ROONEY NOT GOING ANYWHERE, SAYS FERGUSON

On Friday, Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson made his first public comments on since his side’s 2-1 defeat to Real Madrid on Tuesday, addressing the speculation involving forward Wayne Rooney and a potential exit.

Speculation had been rife following the Champions League defeat that Rooney’s place on the team was gone, and that he could move to another club this summer.

ESTADIO BERNABEU TO HOST COPA DEL REY FINAL

Real Madrid has won the right to host the Copa Del Rey final against crosstown rivals Atletico Madrid, when the two sides clash on May 17. It will be the first time ever in the Spanish cup history that a final has been played in one of the participating team’s stadium.

After a meeting between representatives of the two teams, as well as the Spanish football federation, all sides decided to put the final in the heart of Madrid, where there would be a larger number of seats available to fans. According to reports from the Spanish press, Real Madrid wanted the match to be played in Barcelona, but Atletico insisted on using their rival’s stadium.

Each team will be given 30,000 tickets for their fans, and the rest will be sold to the general public.

Tevez’s license was suspended for six months last January, when he pleaded guilty to withholding information about two speeding tickets, and not paying fines on time. Tevez’s excuse was that he did not understand English well enough to understand the language of the police tickets.

Driving with a suspended license in England comes with a penalty of up to six months in prison, as well as a fine of up to £5,000.

BOCA JUNIORS CONTINUE TO FALL WITH LOSS TO NACIONAL

It seems not even the addition of Juan Roman Riquelme has helped Boca Juniors improve their poor form the last two months.

Nacional defender Andre Scotti scored the lone goal for his club, launching a powerful header from a corner into the back of the net. The win moves the Uruguayan squad into first place in Group 1 with seven points from three games.

When Dempsey transferred to Spurs, few of us realized the potential of this team- looking at the EPL table well into the second half of the season they are comfortably sandwiched between last year’s titleholders and last year’s CL winners. They just dismantled Inter. This is not your Mama’s Hot Spurs. He’s on a very good team, making a solid contribution. I’m happy.

Watching Sigurdsson contribute to Spurs doing so well is a double edged sword. It gets Clint closer to his dream of playing in the CL (I know this was a Europa game with no bearing on the BPL standings, but Spurs’ great run of form should carry over). However, the better Sigurdsson plays, the more likely Clint’s role diminishes. I know they are not identical players, but there’s only so much PT to be shared between Adebayor, Clint, Sigurdsson, and Holtby…

You’re right TomM. I was one who said a Fulham with Dempsey and Dembele sticking around would have fared better than Tottenham. Obviously it’s impossible to know, but it’s also obvious that Tottenham is a far superior team then Fulham is, or may ever be, even if they had held on to those two.